


A Risk I'm Willing To Take

by orphan_account



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 04:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My own alternate ending of 2x05, 'Adam'. Janto. No one touches Jack's friends and gets away with it. Ever. Angsty oneshot, though fluffy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Risk I'm Willing To Take

"Speech"

_Thoughts_

Jack dragged Adam down to the vaults, listening to Tosh's pleas and cries echo around the walls. He hated this bastard for what he'd done to his team. No one touched his friends and got away with it. Ever. He forced him into a cell and locked the doors, just as Adam threw himself up against them. "Don't kill me! I had to become part of your memories to survive! I didn't mean any harm!" he cried, and Jack resisted the urge to scoff.

"You changed us," He retorted darkly. _You hurt us. You hurt Ianto. You hurt me. You hurt Gwen. You hurt Owen. Now, you're hurting Tosh. I think that counts as harm._

"For the better! You didn't remember who you were, I helped you. Look at Owen, with all his cynicism gone he's a different man now. Selfless, happy," Adam reasoned.

_Owen may be different and selfless, but he's not happy. The woman he loves is with another man, and they parade their relationship around in front of him. He gets laughed at by the others for his geekiness and his adoration of Tosh. That isn't happy._

"And Toshiko, she's never been this confident," he continued, and Jack snapped.

"And you took advantage of her! You changed her memories to make her fall in love with you. You practically raped her! How is that helping her?" he argued angrily.

"But she is in love with me. And she likes being in love with me."

"Only because you made her think that. Now tell me, how did you come here?" Jack asked, standing right up to Adam and glaring down at him through the Perspex door. "Why us?"

"All of you have such unique memories. Especially you, Jack. All those extraordinary memories you hold, some hidden, some absent. Your singular mind, that's what drew me here," Adam told him with a malicious smile. _My fault._ Jack thought bitterly. _Always my fault. Now I have to fix this._

"Good job. It's what we do best, wipe out aliens," he whispered, the not-so-subtle threat hanging in the air.

"You can't shoot me! You made me live!" Adam paused, and Jack carried on walking. "And you always remember what you've killed! Don't you, Jack?" Jack froze, memories flooding his mind. He'd done horrible things in his long life. Horrible things best left pushed to the back of the mind. He had to live with them, all the murders, the innocent beings he'd killed on orders from a superior. The ones he hadn't been able to save. He gritted his teeth and carried on walking. Away from Adam, and away from the memories he dredged up.

.-.

Jack walked into the conference room, where the rest of the team were sat waiting for him. Ianto was nervous and shaking, and all Jack wanted to do was to run to him, gather him in his arms and tell him it would be okay. But he couldn't, because he had a job to do. He had to be the fearless Captain Jack Harkness. Tosh had tear stains down her cheeks, and Owen kept glancing at her timidly. Gwen just looked petrified, yet determined and angry. Jack couldn't blame her; he was pretty pissed off too. His memories were private, his own, and the thought of someone being able to see them, to change them, made him shudder. It was worse than rape. To have your mind defiled like that, it was the worst crime in the world.

He took his place up the front of the room and turned the screen to show Adam's cell. Tosh and Ianto flinched. "Our memories define us. Adam changed those memories, changed who we are. Now I have to help you all go back, find a memory that defines you. Rediscover who you are," he paused and took a breath, leaning on the table. "If I'm wrong, he'll still be here when I've done this." He pressed a button and the screen changed, drawing all eyes to it as the hypnotising pattern of blue circles appeared. "Let me take you back, to before we all met." He dimmed the lights, trying to ignore the shiver up his spine. This was one of the rare times he was scared. Terrified, to be exact. He had no idea if his plan would work, and if it didn't, they were doomed.

He thought of Gwen, unable to remember her own fiancé. And of Owen, so radically changed that he was shy, unassuming, a classic nerd, pining away after Tosh. Tosh, who was being tricked into loving this person, this thing who had appeared and moulded their lives, their memories, to fit his purpose. Then he thought of Ianto. His beautiful, innocent, amazing Ianto. He would never hurt an innocent being, let alone kill three girls. And to make him live with those memories, relive them all the time without knowing they aren't real, Jack didn't know how he managed it. "Feel around for anything that makes you what you are. The hidden, and the forgotten. Tell me where you are," he whispered around the room, watching as each person went back into their pasts. To a time that Adam hadn't touched. He absently wondered what each of them were thinking.

With Gwen, he knew, it would probably be something with Rhys. No matter how many times she slept with Owen, or blatantly came on to Jack himself, he knew she loved Rhys. She was confused, coming into a new area, a whole new world, where a handsome hero comes in and saves the unsuspecting citizens of Cardiff from aliens with his trusty team. Well, Jack didn't feel like a handsome hero. He was kicking himself for letting this happen right under his nose. He should have noticed before it got out of hand. He should have kept his psychic barriers up fully. He should have paid more attention to Ianto. He should have done so many things, but he didn't. He smiled slightly when Gwen laughed. At least she found a happy memory. Owen's memory would maybe be back with Katie, before her brain tumour, before Jack came running into his life. Or maybe somewhere in his childhood.

"Ten," the medic muttered, and Jack guessed that was the age he was in his memory. "But I love you because you're my son." Jack tried not to wince. He'd read Owen's files, 'childhood trauma, possibly abuse'. He'd heard that line so many times over the years. The parents couldn't give a damn to care about their child. They weren't angry or stupid enough to outright hurt their child, they just ignored them, belittled them, made them think they were nothing. Now he knew where Owen's harsh nature came from.

"Something so reliable about maths," Tosh whispered with a faint smile. Jack knew the feeling. There had been a time where he'd taken refuge in numbers, technology, hard, cold facts. They were constant, unwavering. People lived and died, said things they didn't mean, did stupid things. Machines just did their job, nothing more, nothing less. When they were broken, you fixed them. Simple as that. He watched a small flicker of a smile come to his Ianto's face. _Since when was he 'my' Ianto?_ He thought to himself, but decided he liked the sound of Ianto being his, and couldn't bring himself to care.

"Falling in love." Oh. Of course. A time with Lisa. A time before he'd come to Cardiff. A time when Ianto was still at Torchwood London, with his perfectly human girlfriend. A time before Canary Wharf, before Torchwood 3, before all those things. Before Jack. Before that one day he'd propositioned Jack with a stopwatch over a drawer in the morgue. Everything had gone from there. First, it had started out as just sex. A casual arrangement. Then, Ianto had started staying later into the night. Jack had started telling him random stories about his past as they lay in his tiny bunker, satiated and sweaty, holding each other. Then Ianto had started just falling asleep in Jack's bed and waking up in the morning with Jack, showering together, dressing together, eating breakfast together.

Then Jack went away with The Doctor. He hadn't planned to go like that. He'd planned to reunite with The Doctor and Rose, then maybe introduce them to the team. To Ianto. Take a trip, see if he could be fixed, and be back in five minutes. But The Doctor was running away from him, Rose was gone, and when he got back, he'd been gone for 6 months. When they all got back to the Hub and Gwen started questioning him, he wanted to just break down and tell them about the year that never was. But he couldn't. He wasn't man enough to answer their questions. He played off Owen's question with a crack about his own perfection, then he was asked if he was leaving again, by Ianto. Poor, sweet Ianto, so much heartbreak in one so young. I came back for you. Jack had said, looking the young man that - although he didn't know it at the time - he was quickly coming to love, straight in the eye. Ianto had given him a look, and Jack had amended his sentence to include the team, but he knew he and Ianto would be having a talk.

Then John had come swanning in, expecting Jack to run off with him at the drop of a hat, and trying to blow up Cardiff and God knows how many other places. Ianto's face had shattered once again with John's comments about his and Jack's time in the time loop, and Jack wanted to punch him. Well, punch him again. That day, he gathered up the courage to ask Ianto on a date. A proper dinner and movies, kiss goodnight, flowers and chocolates kind of date. Ianto had said yes, and Jack knew that he was forgiven just that little bit. This time, he wanted to take it slowly. He'd spent a year as prisoner, worrying if Ianto and the others were alright. He didn't want to ruin anything now.

They'd had their date, when they'd gone back in time to the night John had came. They'd gone to the cinema, then had dinner at an Italian restaurant, before going back to Ianto's flat. There, they talked. They talked about Jack's time away, and Jack begged for forgiveness, and he promised to take it slow, and Ianto had agreed. And they'd been okay, up until now. Having old memories dug up had pushed thoughts from his mind. Thoughts such as what Ianto was doing, whether or not he could find the young Welshman for a hug, and other things Ianto-related. Then he'd come in to find Ianto talking about killing some girls, and he could have shot himself for not taking more notice of him. Now look what had happened. Jack snapped back to reality as Owen spoke again.

"That is the nicest thing you've done for me in years, mother," he said bitterly, and Jack knew they were getting somewhere.

"The look on his face," Gwen said quietly, a small smile on her face, and Jack wondered what she was thinking about. He guessed it was Rhys, but other than that, he had no idea.

"I don't have a flat warming," Tosh said, obviously remembering moving. Jack felt a stab of sympathy; before Torchwood, Tosh had pretty much kept herself to herself. At least here she opened up, even just a little bit.

"Like the world had ended," Ianto murmured, and Jack held back a wince, resisting the urge to crawl into a hole somewhere. The look on Ianto's face was exactly the same one he'd had when Cyberwoman-Lisa had told him they were not compatible, when he'd realised she really wasn't coming back. Jack had honestly killed himself for doing that to Ianto, even if it wasn't technically his fault. He'd shot himself in the head, and cleaned up before morning. Sometimes, it was the only way of relief.

"I love him," Gwen said firmly, nodding slightly. Jack knew she was talking about Rhys and a flicker of a smile crept onto his face. At least one of the team had a steady, unwavering relationship to fall back on after this. With Jack, both people in the relationship were too damaged by the incidence to comfort each other, both needing it for themselves. They would end up sitting on Jack's bed, or in Ianto's flat, holding each other, crying. It had happened when Jack had sat with John Ellis, had died with him. When Jack had come back from 1941, and the thing with the real Captain Jack. It had also happened after John Hart, and after Owen had had to kill the alien in the warehouse. Jack was sure he would have done something incredibly stupid without Ianto as his rock, and prayed that Ianto would only forget the events surrounding Adam's time in Torchwood, nothing else.

Then Gwen turned to him, and Jack looked at her. "But not in the way I love you," she said to him, and Jack shook his head slightly. She didn't love him. She loved the image of him. The image of the man who can't die, who can't age, who saves the world from aliens on a daily basis, and is alone in the world, like a neglected puppy that needs to be nursed back to health. A broken machine that needed fixing. Okay, Jack admitted he had plenty of issues when it came to being alone, but Gwen didn't understand. She couldn't understand. Ianto was the only one Jack would let nurse him back to health, to fix him. He didn't love Gwen in any way but that of a brother loving his little sister, or a father proud of his daughter.

He went over to Gwen and handed her the small, white pill. "Take this," he urged softly. She nodded mutely.

"Waiting for someone to see it," Tosh said, tears spilling again. Jack's heart went out to the girl, and he put a hand on her shoulder gently.

"I saw it," he told her, putting the pill on the table in front of her and looking her in the eyes. _I saw your talent. I saw that you were amazing. Don't ever forget it,_ he thought as she took the pill and held it, waiting. Next was Owen.

"Who will save me?" he asked, a hopelessness in his voice that made Jack want to kill whoever caused it. Owen jerked slightly when Jack's hand came to his shoulder, and he looked up into his eyes.

"I will," Jack whispered, his voice slightly rough as he put the pill in the medic's hand. Now it was Ianto's turn.

"Gave me meaning again," the Welshman said, and Jack blinked back a suspicious tingling in his eyes. _You never lost your meaning, you just couldn't find it for a while. It was always there. I saw it. I watched it. I watched you, and I fell for you._ He ached to say the words aloud. Ianto turned and looked him in the eyes, and Jack saw a myriad of emotions swirling in those beautiful stormy blue orbs. "You," he stated simply, and Jack leant over, kissing him on the forehead with all the tenderness he had, putting the pill down. Ianto picked up the little white tablet and stared at it, before turning to look at Jack again. "Jack, before I take this. Just in case it takes me too long to remember. I- I just want to say, I love you, Captain Jack Harkness," he said in a hoarse whisper, looking desperately into Jack's eyes, never breaking gaze. He knew the others could probably hear him, but he didn't really care if they knew. If they even remembered it anyway.

Jack leaned down to kiss his lips sweetly, pouring all his emotion into it as he felt Ianto respond the same. He broke away, and looked Ianto in the eyes to show his honesty. "I love you too, Jones, Ianto Jones. So much. I just hope I remember fast enough after all this," he breathed back, and Ianto nodded to show he understood, before closing his eyes as Jack kissed him once more on the forehead and went back to his place at the head of the table. "You each have a short term amnesia pill, it'll make you forget Adam," he said, his shaking voice sounding incredibly loud against the silence. "We have to wipe out the last 48 hours from our memories." _All the pain, the confusion, the happiness. Everything._ Tosh sniffed as more tears fell. She still thought she was in love with him. "Go back to who we were."

Ianto was the first one. He shoved the pill in his mouth and grabbed for the water, taking a gulp, washing the pill away with it. Then Gwen's turn. Then Owen, dry-swallowing as he took off his glasses. Finally, it was Tosh. She reached across to turn the screen over, showing Adam in his cell, pacing frantically. Jack hoped that was a sign it was working. "I'm going to lose so much," Tosh whispered, and Jack walked up behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

"None of it was real," he told her sadly, watching as Adam clutched his stomach and curled into a ball in pain.

"He loved me," she replied, her voice cracking as she choked back her tears. She turned to face Jack. "And I loved him! It's no different from real memories!" she said defiantly.

"He forced it on you. You have to let it go," Jack pleaded, cupping her cheek. He hated this. She thought she was happy, but he couldn't let her, let any of them, live a lie. Not now he knew. Not while Ianto was forced to live with false guilt. Jack led Tosh to sit back down and she took the pill, the glass of water coming to her lips as shiny tears dripped onto the table surface. 'Goodbye, Adam', she mouthed as she leant her head on her arms, ready for when the pill knocked her out, keeping her eyes on the screen the whole time. Jack watched as Gwen swayed, striding over to cushion her head as she fell unconscious to the table.

The others were already out, and Jack braced himself, walking out of the room and down to the vaults, every footstep pounding in his ears. Now he was mad. He'd just had to Retcon his whole team. His friends. His family. Because they were the only family he had left, now. Gwen, the stubborn, compassionate ex-police officer. The one who chided him for losing his humanity, and through all her faults with her relationship, managed to keep her life going. The baby sister of the family.

Owen, the sarcastic, acerbic doctor. He had a hard shell that many found off-putting, but he'd proved to Jack countless times that he had a heart. And he was a genius at times. He had a whole different perspective on things, looking for how alien machines can be used for medical equipment, rather than weapons like UNIT seemed to. Sure, he made some harsh comments, but after all he'd been through, Jack didn't blame him for trying to push people away, but it was harder than it looked. Jack knew. Owen was the big brother, you fight all the time and say mean things about each other, but when it comes down to it, he's always there to protect you, to help you.

Tosh, the shy, fantastically clever tech genius. She, like most incredibly smart people, spent a lot of her time reading books, or playing with circuit boards and other technological equipment, and thus didn't get out much. She was uneasy when the centre of attention, and tended to keep quiet, but when you did get her to properly talk, she would say the most amazing things. She was another sister, the one who spends all her time in her room on her computer, but is always there to listen to your problems.

Ianto, the quick-witted, fiercely loyal, often-overlooked receptionist. Always ready to help those he loves, at whatever cost. He could easily blend into the background, but Jack always noticed him. He sometimes said he knew everything, and most of the time he was right. Ask him anything, and he'll have an answer for you. He was, though he would kill Jack if he ever voiced it, the mother. He looked after all of them, made sure they ate, drank and slept. He tidied up after them all, made sure they did the paperwork, and weren't late for appointments or meetings, and he was always a shoulder to cry on.

And Jack, well, Jack was the mysterious leader, who no one seemed to know much about, and always managed to surprise people. He was the proud father, watching his children as they progressed, as they helped others, as they saved the world. Of course, Jack's subconscious voice told him there was another reason he put Ianto as the mother while he was the father, but he just told it to shut up. He walked down to the cell where Adam was sat on the stone bench, and stood in front of the door, hands in his pockets. "Just me left." He said, a soft satisfaction in his voice. _You can't hurt them anymore._ Adam looked up at him scathingly.

"Jack I know what it's like, not to exist. Please don't send me back," he begged.

"I have to," Jack replied plainly. _I want to. I need to._

"What are you gonna do?" Adam asked, as if sure Jack couldn't make him fade away. Jack held up the little white Retcon pill.

"This will wipe out the past two days," he explained, and watched as Adam's eyes shuttered. He knew he was doomed.

"But you'll still keep the bad memories. Because they were always yours," he told him quickly, trying for anything to save himself. Jack nodded slightly.

"I can live with those. I have done for years," Jack acknowledged. They still bothered him, but they were ghosts of his past now.

"But what about the good times? What about the last good memory of you and your dad," Adam asked, and Jack searched his mind. The only thing he could remember of his dad was a fading image, and a warning. _Look after your brother._ Jack hadn't even done that properly. But his dad was gone now. He wouldn't be around for another three thousand years, and even then, he wouldn't be Captain Jack Harkness' dad. He'd be the father of two young boys, with no idea who the man in the army uniform was. Jack had let his dad go decades ago. No matter whether the memory was good or bad, he didn't need it. He had other good memories, of other people, to take their place.

"It's lost," he stated simply.

"I can help you find it," Adam said, "I can take you back there, before I die."

"That would be even worse than all my worst memories in one. You can't take me back there, it's gone. I'm done with that part of my life, now," Jack replied forcefully.

"Well then, any happy memory. I can take you there, anywhere," Adam offered in desperation. Jack shook his head.

"The only happy memories I need are the ones from this time. With my team. With Ianto. The ones I already remember," he said truthfully. "And there is no way in hell I'll let you back into my head after what you did to Ianto. If you meant no harm, why did you put those memories in his head, huh? Why did you make him believe he was a murderer?" he yelled, pacing in front of the cell.

"I'd forgotten how good the bad memories felt to place," Adam admitted.

"So you thought you'd have some fun? Listen, you can't just plant yourself into other people's lives and change who they are! You can't make Tosh love you, or take away Owen's cynicism, or make Gwen forget her fiancé. You can't force me to remember my dad, or Grey. And most of all, you can't make Ianto think he's a killer, a monster. You can't give him blood on his hands and expect me to sit there and do nothing! Nobody touches my friends and gets away with it!" He held up the Retcon pill and Adam paled slightly. "If I take this pill, I'll forget the past two days, and you'll die. You'll die, because no one will remember you," he said, his nostrils flared in anger.

"I don't wanna die! You take that pill, and you will lose everything! Every memory of your home, of your parents, of your brother. You wipe me out now and they will cease to have existed for you!" Adam exclaimed, but Jack didn't budge.

"They'll still exist because I'll know they were there. I may not remember exactly what song my mother used to sing, or what my dad's favourite hobby was, or what Grey had in his room, but I'll remember they were there. I'll remember that I loved my family. I'll remember that my father was a good man, and that my mother was kind and gentle. I'll remember that my brother was too young to be taken away from me. And that's all that matters to me. I'll still know they were there!" he ranted, coming to a halt in front of Adam, looking at him through the door.

"If you forget me, you'll forget all the memories I've shown you. All the good times I helped you remember," Adam said softly. Jack looked at the small pill in between his fingers.

"That's a risk I'm willing to take. Goodbye Adam," he replied quietly, before swallowing the pill in one gulp.

"No!" Adam cried as his image flickered slightly and he clutched his stomach, crumpling to the floor in pain. Memories flashed through Jack's head as the pill started to take effect. Him running after his dad and Grey, him letting go of Grey's hand, him standing alone in the sand, searching. They crossed with memories from way back, memories of Estelle, of his first kiss; a girl back in his class at school, or him being in the war with his best friend. The images got blurrier as he fell against the wall, sliding down to the floor as he slipped into blackness, hearing Adam's final scream.

Jack woke up with a huge headache, sitting on the cold, stone floor of the vaults with no idea how he got there. In fact, he had no memory of anything from around the past 2 days. He recognised the signs of being Retconned almost instantly, and wondered where the rest of the team were. Had they been Retconned too? If so, why had they done it to themselves, as they were the only ones with access to it. He stood up and made his way quickly up to the main Hub, where Owen, Gwen and Tosh were at the computers, with Ianto over Gwen's shoulder, mugs in his hands. They all turned when they heard him, and Gwen looked at him curiously. "Jack, how have we all lost two days?" she asked.

"You guys too?" Jack asked, and they nodded.

"Last 48 hours, none of us can remember a thing," Ianto replied. Jack smiled slightly at Ianto, and got one in return. He was glad that his Welshman was okay. _Wait, his Welshman? When had that happened?_ Oh well, it had a ring to it.

"The system's blank, the CCTV has been wiped. What's been going on? What have we been doing?" Tosh asked. Wouldn't we all like to know, Jack thought, trying to figure out what happened.

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure we've been Retconned," he said slowly.

"Why would we Retcon ourselves?" Gwen asked, confused. Jack just shrugged hopelessly.

"Great, that's two days of my life I'll never get back," Owen said sardonically. Jack fought the urge to snort with laughter, then caught sight of the flowers on Tosh's desk.

"Looks like Toshiko's got herself a secret admirer, though," he noted, and Tosh looked at him, surprised, before picking a card out of the flowers.

"'To Tosh, love and apologies, Owen'?" she read, confused. "They're from you," she said to Owen, a slight smile on her face that he failed to see as he shrugged his jacket on and snickered.

"In your dreams, Tosh. I think someone's winding you up, darling. I don't do flowers." He reached over and took the card from Tosh's hands, reading it. "And I definitely don't do apologies," he said, handing it back and not noticing as her face fell, unnoticeable to anyone but those who looked hard enough, AKA everyone but Owen. He walked off down to the Autopsy Bay, and Jack looked around, catching Ianto's eye.

"Right. Try and see if there's anything there, but I doubt there will be if we were the ones to do it, so when you're satisfied you can go home, I guess," he said, before walking off to his office, and hearing the telltale sounds of footsteps behind him. He entered and shut the door behind him, going to sit behind his desk. He spotted a small black book on the side and opened it, immediately recognising the handwriting as Ianto's.

He flicked through a few pages, smirking when he read an entry about the night they'd put measuring tapes to good use. That was a fun night. Then there was another entry, a more serious one. A few words leapt out at him, but one sentence was most prominent. _I think I've fallen in love with him. Shite, I'm in love with Jack Harkness._ He gaped. He had no idea Ianto felt that way. I mean, sure, he knew their relationship was a good one, and he had to admit he'd been attempting to deny some suspiciously love-like feelings a few days ago as he'd watched Ianto sleeping... Oh, God. He'd gone and done it. He'd fallen for him, hard. He put the book back on the side and sat, pondering what to do about this new piece of information.

A few moments later, Ianto stepped through the door, shutting it quietly behind him. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to a clear plastic bag with a strange golden box inside. Jack took it out of the bag and studied it closely.

"No idea. Who's Adam?" he queried, reading the name written in marker on the top of the bag. Ianto shrugged, and Jack saw the book again. "Oh, by the way. Found your diary," he added, holding it up. Ianto's eyes widened a fraction and he hastily grabbed it, holding it close to his chest.

"Thanks, err, I've been, err, looking for that," he said nervously. Jack reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him closer, until they were practically nose to nose. He leant over until his lips were ghosting over Ianto's ear, and felt him shiver with pleasure.

"And for the record, I love you too," he whispered, pressing a kiss to the velvety skin beneath his ear. Ianto took a step back, eyes wide.

"You what?" he asked disbelievingly.

"I love you too. And if my brain has just been mean and ignored a sentence where it says something like 'only kidding, I don't love him at all', then I've just made a total ass of myself and I'll be going," he said in a rush, moving to walk out of the room when a hand on his bicep stopped him and spun him round.

"No, no, it's not that. I just didn't think I'd heard you properly. I do love you, Jack," Ianto assured the older man. Jack smiled and tugged him into a kiss.

"Well that's good. Because now I know that, I'm not going to let you go. Ever," he said, his last word a possessive growl as he held Ianto in a hug.

"Hmm, I suppose I can live with that," Ianto whispered, smirking. "But have a look at that box, first, there's something else in the bag," He added, pulling away to open the bag, taking out a small piece of the same metal as the box. Jack watched as he turned the box over, before pushing the smaller piece into a slot. They waited, alert for anything, but nothing happened. "Well that was anticlimactic," Ianto said, putting the box down. Just as it touched the desk, the sides slid out, revealing a small compartment. Jack picked it up and turned it over, letting a small mound of golden sand trickle into his palm and through his fingers. He felt a brief tickling at his mind, as if a memory was trying to come forth, but it was gone as soon as it came, and he ignored it, putting the box down and putting his arms around Ianto from behind, resting his chin on the Welshman's shoulder.

"Stay with me?" he murmured. Ianto smiled, putting his hands over Jack's, which were on Ianto's chest, over his heart.

"Always."


End file.
